


Virtue

by f1shychan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Internal Conflict, Moral Dilemmas, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 06:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12600144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f1shychan/pseuds/f1shychan
Summary: Letting the past die is not as simple as Ren once thought.





	Virtue

His entire body and mind stops all at once when the name he’s tried so hard to leave behind reverberates in the surrounding air. 

Again, his past has crept up on him when he’d least been expecting it. Han approaches him slowly, weapon sheathed. There’s a tentativeness in his stride, an intensity buzzing in his mind, but it isn’t fear - or, not the kind of fear Ren wants, rather. 

Ren is powerful with the force. He can squeeze the life out of a man without looking him in the eye. He can freeze bullets mid-fire. Wielding a sabre comes as natural to him as breathing. He can kill without wink of remorse. He is a Sith’s apprentice, Snoke’s chosen pupil with endless potential, and  _ this _ is something to fear. 

But it’s  _ not _ what frightens Han Solo. 

Han Solo is only afraid of facing something he’s been avoiding for too long. 

There’s a frustrating determination in his voice when he speaks to Ren, looks at Ren. 

He’s deluded himself, he sees someone who isn’t really there. Someone who’s dead. Ben Solo was killed along with the rest of Luke Skywalker’s students, and Han doesn’t want to believe it. He prefers to indulge in grief-fueled hallucinations. Ben Solo was weak, and foolish, just like his father is. 

But Ren can’t help but feel instantly exposed when he removes his mask, as if not just a piece of armor has come off, but a layer of the protective barrier he’s reinforced in his head has been stripped away. Han steps a little closer, like he can sense this vulnerability. 

The pull becomes strong, then. 

The pull to the light.

It’s always there, in the back of his mind - ever-present, but weak. Now, though, it threatens to choke him once again - more than  _ ever _ \- and flood over the hatred he is trying ever so hard to revel in. 

“Come home. We miss you.”

He does not lie to Han when he says he’s being torn apart. This chaos in his mind - a raging battle of darkness and light - it’s unbearable, worse than any physical pain Ren has ever endured in his twenty-nine years. There is nothing in the world that he wants more than to be free of this ceaseless mental battle of opposing moralities, and he knows what he must do.. 

.. And as the light from the draining sun flutters out, and he is once again shrouded in shadows, he does it.

He plunges his sabre into his father’s stomach. 

Han’s face contorts. There’s shock there, and horror, and agony. He can barely manage more than a wheeze. This is Ren’s final step. Surely, this is the grand destiny Snoke has been speaking of since he’d first planted the seeds of the Dark Side in Ren’s mind as a boy. 

Surely.

As he holds Han there, speared animalistically with a crackling sabre, Ren searches his eyes desperately for the closure he’s been chasing after for so long. He wants to see rage. He wants to see terror. He wants to see disappointment. He wants to see Han finally understanding that there is no coming back from what he has become -- Kylo Ren.

He wants to see something to  _ hate _ . 

But Han’s hand creeps up to cup his cheek, and Ben Solo only sees one thing in his father’s dying gaze. 

Forgiveness. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hate myself and like to write short one-shots about things that break my heart.  
> also pretty hyped for episode viii.


End file.
